Cloud Nine

by Caryl Churchill

The time-shifting comedy by the author of Top Girls created a sensation Off-Broadway directed by Tommy Tune. Here we are in 1880 darkest but British Africa as portrayed in old movies, plays and novels. Only with a difference. Both parody and spoof of the Victorian Empire and its rigid attitudes especially towards sex. There is Clive, a British functionary, his wife Betty (played by a man), their daughter Victoria (a rag doll), Clive's friend Harry an explorer, Mrs. Saunders who runs about dressed in a riding habit, Clive's son Edward who still plays with dolls and is played by a woman and Joshua a native servant who knows exactly what is really going on. What really is going on is a marvelous send up and a non-stop round robin of sexual liaisons. All this time the natives are restless in the background. The second act shifts to London in 1980 except for the surviving characters it is only twenty five years later and all those repressed sexual longings have evaporated along with the Empire.

"Intelligent, inventive and funny."-The New York Times

"I really don't know when I've had more fun. It blends farce, pathos into a work of total theatre."-New York Daily News

Casting: 4m, 3f w/doubling / Scenery: 2 exteriors

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, School, Classics, LGBT

110 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, dramatisation of the abuses of power, and exploration of sexual politics.[1] She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and one of world theatre's most influential writers.

Her early work developed Bertolt Brecht's modernist dramatic and theatrical techniques of 'Epic theatre' to explore issues of gender and sexuality. From A Mouthful of Birds (1986) onwards, she began to experiment with forms of dance-theatre, incorporating techniques developed from the performance tradition initiated by Antonin Artaud with his 'Theatre of Cruelty'. This move away from a clear Fabel dramaturgy towards increasingly fragmented and surrealistic narratives characterises her work as postmodernist.

Prizes and awards

Churchill has received much recognition, including the following awards:

1958 Sunday Times/National Union of Students Drama Festival Award Downstairs
1961 Richard Hillary Memorial Prize
1981 Obie Award for Playwriting, Cloud Nine
1982 Obie Award for Playwriting, Top Girls
1983 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (runner-up), Top Girls
1984 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Fen
1987 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year, Serious Money
1987 Obie Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
1987 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Serious Money
1988 Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
2001 Obie Sustained Achievement Award
2010 Inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Plays

Downstairs (1958)
You've No Need to be Frightened (1959?)
Having a Wonderful Time (1960)
Easy Death (1960)
The Ants, radio drama (1962)
Lovesick, radio drama (1969)
Identical Twins (1960)
Abortive, radio drama (1971)
Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen, radio drama (1971)
Owners (1972)
Schreber's Nervous Illness, radio drama (1972) – based on Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution (written 1972)
The Judge's Wife, radio drama (1972)
Moving Clocks Go Slow, (1973)
Turkish Delight, television drama (1973)
Objections to Sex and Violence (1975)
Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976) [7]
Vinegar Tom (1976)
Traps (1976)
The After-Dinner Joke, television drama (1978)
Seagulls (written 1978)
Cloud Nine (1979)
Three More Sleepless Nights (1980)
Top Girls (1982)
Crimes, television drama (1982)
Fen (1983)
Softcops (1984)
A Mouthful of Birds (1986)
A Heart's Desire (1987)[18]
Serious Money (1987)
Ice Cream (1989)
Hot Fudge (1989)
Mad Forest (1990)
Lives of the Great Poisoners (1991)
The Skriker (1994)
Blue Heart (1997)
Hotel (1997)
This is a Chair (1999)
Far Away (2000)
Thyestes (2001) – translation of Seneca's tragedy
A Number (2002)
A Dream Play (2005) – translation of August Strindberg's play
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (2006)
Seven Jewish Children – a play for Gaza (2009)
Love and Information (2012)
Ding Dong the Wicked (2013)
Here We Go (play) (2015)

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryl_Ch...

Reviews

[Barry Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hilarious and incredibly raunchy play from one of Britain's pre-eminent playwrights Caryl Churchill. Packed to the brim with taboo-breaking moments and played out by a cast of gender bending and race transcending characters, Cloud Nine is a play that will make you think, and gag, and look away, and laugh, and feel awkward. You definitely won't forget it easily.

[Peter]

Cloud 9 is a dive into the deep end of sexual politics.

From the cast list—which indicates that some women and girls should be played by men, a black character played by a white, and a boy by a woman—it’s clear that readers are in for an adventure.

How successfully this works is another question.

Cloud 9 is broken into two acts. The first act tells the story of a British family in Africa during the Victorian era. They are part of an oppressive regime, and the oppression of the Africans by the British is reflected in the family by the oppression of the family by the father.

The second act is set in the late 1970s, and many of the same characters appear, though they have only aged 25 years. In this act, the characters satisfy some of their sexual longings, and we see a vastly different family dynamic. The characters have moved home, changed, and grown into their own personalities.

As a didactic text, Cloud 9 certainly succeeds. It argues that masculinity is oppressive and that femininity and sexual freedom are the source of “more energy.” Clive, the patriarch in the family and the British loyalist, reprimands and represses everyone else while performing his own acts of moral ambiguity on the side. Gay and lesbian characters suppressed in the first act are the source of all things good in the second act. Oppressive government is bad, sexual freedom is cathartic, and little else seems to be important. You can’t help but see the point.

But because it is so programmatic, the play, in my mind, fails on a human level. The characters (as they are written) show little depth, and the moments in the second act when they are meant to confront their weaknesses are overwrought. They are made in black and white. Little is left to mystery. Only Betty, Clive’s wife, who appears in both acts, seems to show shades of gray in her feeling and in her development. Only she seems caught in the middle ground that most of us live our lives in.

Lastly, shortly after reading this, I had a conversation with someone about August Wilson’s Fences, in which each character searches for fulfillment in his or her on way: maintaining a house, holding together a family, seeking a football scholarship, etc. In Cloud 9, fulfillment for every character comes from sex or subservience.

Do I recommend it? Not particularly. It’s a fun and provocative read, though.
Would I teach it? Doubt it.
Lasting impressions: Cloud 9 works as an exploration into sexual politics and fulfillment. And there are some interesting structural decisions in it. But that’s about it.

[justine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very peculiar. This was a required reading for my philosophy class. I didn't appreciate the "random" element of this play. There is probably lots to analyze in there but I just got bored with the crudeness and the confusing plot. There are way too many characters! Not for me.

[Jemppu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant 👏👏👏

[Jessica López-Barkl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boy o' boy! This play caused quite the uproar in my 2009 North Campus (Washington State Penitentiary) Representative Plays class. 6 students got to page six and slammed the book shut and refused to keep reading (as their response paper told me). Yikes! I had never thought of this as a very controversial play. I did the dramaturgy in a team effort in 1999 and I was watching the gender switching/time switching/genre switching/place switching right in front of my little eyes and I hadn't really thought about the fact that if you're reading it, the little boy who is raped by the Uncle, is in fact, raped. However, when you're watching it, it's played by a grown woman...so...some of it is mitigated, I guess. The style of the first act is also so silly and fun that much of the oppression and abuse is mitigated that way. Well, they didn't get full points for giving up and giving in to their biases, but I sure learned a lot...Whew!

[rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars (although I later downgraded it to 3.75 stars)
Woah.
I'm not really sure what to say other than I thought this was just incredible. (I've spent the past five minutes trying to articulate my thoughts but it didn't make any sense, so I guess all I can tell you is to just read it.)

(Or watch it)

Edit that was written two minutes after I published this review: I feel like I'm overhyping the play. Basically the thing that blew my mind was the symbolism behind characters being played by actors of the opposite gender. But the general content was A+ too.

Edit that was written like a month and a half after I read the book: Downgraded to 4 stars because it wasn't reeeeally 5 stars worthy.

[Gabe Steller · Rating 4 out of 5]

crashed against the limits of reading vs seeing plays with this, as many of the characters are supposed to be played by opposites, children by adults, black people by white people, women by men and vice versa, and i kept trying to keep that in mind but it was an exercise in futility.

on top of that theres a device wherein the first half takes place in colonial africa and the second in 1970's london tho with the same characters only aged 25 years. Even tho its maybe a gimmik too many i did kinda liked it as sometimes parts of the past still feel so present they might as well have only happened a few decades ago.

anyways always love a work where literally everyones trying to bang eachother. 4 stars!

[charlotte ✩ · Rating 5 out of 5]

best play i’ve read in my life. i have no idea how this isn’t more popular among classics readers but i’ll keep recommending it to people till i die

[Karolina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5⭐
Jestem fanką pierwszego aktu. Gdybym miała tylko to oceniać, to dałabym 4 gwiazdki, ale muszę odjąć trochę za akt drugi. Z jakiegoś powodu w książkach, w których wydarzenia rozgrywają się w dużym odstępie czasu, zawsze bardziej podoba mi się część mająca miejsce w przeszłości i tak samo było w tym przypadku. Tak jak w akcie pierwszym podoba mi się duża ilość bohaterów i dosyć losowe wydarzenia, tak w drugim akcie było to dla mnie za dużo, ale może to tylko ja 🥴 Bardzo mi się podobało, że niektóre szczegóły (np. oś czasu) nie miały sensu, a jednak istnieją 😭

[Sam Zucca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this play was absolutely off the wall.

After really hating Top Girls I was so pleased at how enjoyable this was. It's quite dizzying with it's race and gender swaps, time jumps from colonial Africa to 1970s London, and everyone seeming to be sleeping with everyone else.

A lot of the themes in the play are quite dark, and troubling and immediate, but that doesn't stop it from being really fun. When I read this in my head it almost seemed like a musical, as most scenes do have a song involved. Then there's the dialogue where every character seems to say exactly what they are thinking, with no subtext involved at all. At least for me, that made it really funny. Particularly with Clive and Martin in the first and then second acts of the play, so seem to be the straight males of the ensemble. Clive's horror at his friend Harry's advances, as being 'a betrayal of the Queen' and then Martin's description of his novel 'about women from the women's point of view' are just a few examples of the play's cutting humour.

I found it a lot more digestible than Top Girls especially with the play's dialogue. At times characters do seem to talk at each other rather than with each other, but this is kept to a minimum, and there's thankfully no instances of the brain-hurting overlapping dialogue.

I suppose only a few issues I'd have with Cloud Nine are its themes, and I suppose I'm thinking about what it's actually saying, or trying to say. Sure it's incredibly radical for 1978, and it explores the very complicated relationships of its queer characters very seriously. There still seems to be an element of fear in its tone however, and I don't know if that's something reflecting its audiences attitudes or something Churchill herself is trying to warn. As if in wake of the sexual revolution, same-sex relationships have become much less taboo, but then at the same time the floodgates are open to incest and pedophilia? It's quite a dangerous line to walk, especially when all these different sexualities are all mingling together in the same play. Really I don't know if the play is a liberal one, or secretly conservative. Maybe I'm trying too hard to untangle all of it, Churchill just puts it all in there for us to marvel at. Maybe we just need to see it/read it to find out what makes us uncomfortable, and to ask ourselves why.

[Laala Kashef Alghata · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this play. Maybe I’m the right age for it. Maybe it’s just different enough to be interesting, maybe because I don’t read a lot of plays I think it’s clever, maybe Caryl Churchill is just an amazing writer.

It has two acts, one set in Victorian times in a British colony in Africa. Act Two is in London in 1979 — a hundred years have passed, but for the characters it is twenty-five years later. In first act, Betty, who is Clive’s wife, is played by a man to symbolize her trying to be everything men want her to be and not appreciate herself as a woman. Joshua, their black servant is played by a white to represent him not respecting himself as a black man and modeling himself after what Clive wants him to be. Their son, Edward, is played by a woman because he is effeminate and gay, despite his father trying to “straighten” him out. In Act Two, the only character played by someone not of their gender is a child, Cathy, who is played by a man.

It sounds complex, and it is, but it makes for a great reading. I really, really wish I could see this in performance though because there are so many intricacies created by doubling the actors and switching genders with actor-character that could only come out properly in performance. I will definitely go to see this as soon as it’s put on anywhere near me.

Churchill discusses sexual politics in an interesting way, looking at women who are willing to be subordinate vs those who are not, she plays with the sexuality of the characters and almost has homosexuality become a lifestyle rather than something one is born with, as all the main characters experiment with what they want their sexual life to encompass. She ends the play with some resolution but no clear sexual resolution and thus I deduce that she is aware that for some sexuality has no clear frontiers.

[Lillian Lippold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Churchill really is so good at what she does.

The fact that this play premiered in 1981 is absolutely surreal to me. It feels so ahead of its time. It feels so revolutionary. Even reading it now, it feels revolutionary.

The way Churchill writes about sex and women is so honest that it hits you in the face. There is nothing sugarcoated. They are honest characters that exist in such a creative way that I find myself confused and in awe of the complexity that is demonstrated. There is nothing simple about this, but, at the same time, the whole thing is simple. The twists at the end of each act remind me of a Black Mirror episode in that they are unexpected and earth shattering. This was all so geniusly crafted.

I truly truly adored this work. Thank you Churchill. Women playwrights never cease to amaze me. You are no exception.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and provocative meditation on identity, sexism, colonialism, sexuality and theatricality. The play's first act is set in colonial Africa, a Victorian-era parallelism (?) between the project of Empire and the microcosm of the family. Gender/sex/body bending abounds. Act two transplants the same figures into contemporary England (well, contemporary to the play's publication in the end of the 70s) and questions whether we read this transition between Victorianism and 'modern' sexual politics as one of 'progress.'

I would love to see this one performed, and the play comes highly recommended--I don't read much drama, and am not usually impressed when I do, but this is a real knockout.

[nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

HARRY: You have been thought of where no white woman has ever been thought of before.

BETTY: It’s one way of having adventures.

[muni · Rating 3 out of 5]

weird...wanna see it on stage tho

[Julia]

what a wacky, disturbing time

[clyde cohen · Rating 1 out of 5]

mess of shit

[Hannah Keselman · Rating 1 out of 5]

not the subversive play she so clearly wanted it to be...so many better texts out there about gender and sexuality during the 20th century that don't end up coming back around to be offensive

[Junie · Rating 3 out of 5]

well it was something that's for sure

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love and acceptance of oneself and of others is a theme at the heart of this amazing British play that revolutionized English theater. As the censorship of the theater was stripped away, Churchill took the opportunity to present a play that was overtly frank in its depiction and discussion of sex, sexuality, and gender roles in the 1970's. Homosexuality, gender bending, adultery, violence, racism, and graphic language all take center stage in a play that will leave you both hysterical with laughter and contemplative about the importance of love, acceptance, and family in the face of social norms and expectations. Far too adult to be taught in grade school, Cloud 9 is, nevertheless, a play that should be read by everyone.

[Emma Getz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cloud 9 is messy and ambitious, but those types of plays tend to be my favorites. The entire structure relies on Brechtian distancing effects, which is what makes it so strong. The story therefore ends up in the structure itself.
It tackles issues of gender, sexual identity, and perhaps most importantly the massive and longstanding effects of British colonialism. The play doesn’t provide perfect answers, but it doesn’t really need to. It would be super interesting to watch this one performed live.

[Sarah Pitman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Close to 4? This play is very farcical and funny but with a lot of social commentary. The first act seemed to have a more pointed direction than the second, which lost a little momentum for me, but could be different seeing it on stage. Not too sure about that one cross-casting choice in Act I, yes I know it's very deliberate and possibly even attempting to satirize blackface, but doesn't sit well coming from a white author. Super innovative in many ways, and I'm getting why Churchill is a modern staple in western theatre.

[Holly Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really impressed with this until the ending, what a non-ending. Everything's very on the nose in this both with the blunt dialogue between the characters and the social commentary stuff, but that's what makes it so funny. I really want to see it performed now because I bet its even funnier when you can see the gender bender roles instead of just imagine it because it's quite hard to rememver which characters are being cross played so as to speak.

[Meltha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Caryl Churchill is actually a very good writer if she'd just quit writing about sex for longer than thirty seconds.

[Sheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

My very favorite play. I've seen it performed twice, read it countless times, and had the poster on my dorm room wall at Oberlin. Gender bending time travel farce is the best way I can describe it.

[Anna Groover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cloud 9 wrestles with a lot of important social issues by rendering the familiar unfamiliar: women are played by men, men are played by women, and a black man is played by a white man. In this sense, it's satirical and a little bit nonsensical--the first act takes place in colonial Africa and the second act in the (somewhat) present day, although the characters only age 25 years in the time that passes between acts.

I appreciated the relationality at the heart of many of the conflicts between characters: how they occupy and don't occupy the gender roles society has prescribed for them; how they can and can't fulfill these obligations toward each other; and even how subverting traditional expectations can often prove unsatisfying. Ultimately, though, I can't say it was something I loved because it's a piece of theater whose delivery truly depends on its performance and I haven't gotten to watch a production of it. Because of the unusual casting decisions, I think it's something best experienced live and in-person.

[Michael B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

First staged in 1979, one could imagine this play created some shockwaves. But its sexual politics seems dated now and this could explain why it is now rarely staged anymore, if at all. The fact is that its politics do not stand up to the far more critical work that has been produced since. The anti-colonial theme appears almost quaint when compared to what has been published and performed since, so you can imagine that as I struggled to understand the relevance of this play in a historical context, I came away with a really limited appreciation for what it might have accomplished during its time. This may be unfair of me, but I am not a scholar of the form and as such, I was more bored by this reading than intrigued. I wanted to like this play more than I did, imagining I was re-discovering a seminal work that transformed theater somehow. I was very disappointed. If audiences were once entertained by this, it is hard to imagine they would even sit through it today.

[Brooks Madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very witty and fun. Balances satire and genuine comedy very well amidst the gravely serious undertones. This is the first play I’ve ever read (that I wasn’t involved in at least) and it compelled me to want to read a lot more plays. I feel that there’s certain cues and pauses that aren’t written but I’m able to pick up on very easily, and while I’m sure it functions better as a theatrical production, it’s a damn good read too. Felt Animal Farm-ish to me, probably that’s because I haven’t read much other political satire though.

[Ben Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the wildest thing I've ever read! Every taboo is broken, this is a gender bending and race transcending play set firstly in Victorian Africa around a cast of characters who are all very 'embroiled' together shall we say. This is one of the raunchiest (is that the right word?) pieces of writing I've ever read and deals with every type of relationship I could imagine.

If you pick this up, you will not forget it! I promise you that.

For good or bad.

[the_queen_of_books24 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well that was interesting! I liked the gender-bending. I'll be very interested to discuss this in class! But I'm even more sure now that I don't like 20th century things, or at least the stuff the uni chooses, cause it's all bawdy and kinda gross. But I've got more used to it since last year 🙄 wow never thought I'd "get used to" (or at least acclimatised/resigned to) gay sex in books!